


i buried me too

by tamaslin



Category: Naruto
Genre: Coping, F/M, i am also bad at dealing with emotions, shikamaru is sad and bad at dealing with emotions, temari is also bad at dealing with emotions, they talk abt asuma's death and maybe there's tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 17:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16727463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamaslin/pseuds/tamaslin
Summary: weeks after asuma's death, temari pays shikamaru a visit.from a twitter prompt: shikatem + coping





	i buried me too

“Since when do you smoke?”

 Shikamaru looks up from the board to see her backlit with the light of his home. Can tell even in the low light the way her eyebrows crease when she looks down at him. To the cigarette held between his fingers. The smoke curling from his lips. He takes another drag before answering her and does his best not to cough when it hits his lungs. ‘ _How did he --_ ’

 “Didn’t hear you come in, Temari.” Her name still feels like a guest in his mouth. Like her in his home and he makes a note to ask his father about letting strangers in. Nevermind that she’s not a stranger. Nevermind that the thought of her being anything closer sets his heart on edge even now.

 “Like hell,” comes her response as she takes a seat opposite him. “You hear everything. And you’re avoiding the question.”

“Since a few weeks ago.”

“Why?”

There’s wire through the trees and a fissure splitting the ground in his memory. There’s a laugh like a scream that’s been in his dreams every night since. She has to know. Has to understand how black-and-red his mind has become. After all ---

“How’s your brothers?”

“Shikamaru.” 

“Temari.”

The sound she lets out is somewhere between anger and exasperation. He can’t help the curve to his mouth at it, a smile that doesn’t reach his bones. His eyes return to the board in front of him and remember it overturned. Recalls the sound the pieces made when they clattered to the floor. Now they lay rank-and-file and ready to be moved. Another drag of the cigarette and he slides a piece forward and wonders if Temari knows how to play.

He feels more than sees her look down and notice the pieces on the board now. Can imagine the way her head tilts to the side as she says, “Shogi?”

“You know I play it. Do you?”

Her response is to move a piece and he catches the edge of tanned fingers in his vision. They belong to a wider hand than Temari’s and when he blinks to clear his vision, he realizes his eyes have misted over. In his hand, the cigarette trembles and he finds the ashtray at his side. Snubs it out and keeps it with the others.

Silence gathers like the dusk around them, the light from behind the screen doors all they have as they play. She’s not a _terrible_ player. Is quick enough with her thinking that once or twice Shikamaru finds himself with his hands above his stomach, curled in the familiar pose as he thinks.

It’s gotten harder to the past few weeks. Think. Each time his fingers connect he imagines blood on the dirt. Blood in the forest and the sound of collapsing rocks. The clack of shogi pieces help but only to remind him of the smiling face that’s not across from him anymore. (He knows what would happen if he asked Temari to smile) If he thought about it. If he looked at his heart like a mission to take apart, he’d know that he was shaken. That he needed help.

Instead he pulls another cigarette from the pack at his side. Brushes his fingers over the lighter and thinks about the rain.

“You should quit that. It’s not good for you.”

“Asuma was killed.”

Their game is finished. His victory obvious across the board but his words taste like defeat. Her inhale is sharp enough to make him wince. When he dares to look up her eyes are wide, mouth open. He doesn’t know if it’s pity or something else he sees but it tightens in chest. Makes his eyes sting.

“We were fighting the Akatsuki. We _won_ but I… but he…”

“A few weeks ago?” He almost doesn’t hear her for how soft her voice has become and that’s when he feels the tears gather. Looks away to the stars to try and keep them in. He had his moment (shogi pieces across the floor, his hands bruised from hitting the ground, his throat raw from screaming). He couldn’t afford to have another.

“Yeah.”

She’s quiet. She’s waiting and he wishes that she would speak again because he feels the words against his tongue. Knows that they won’t stop once they’ve started again. She’s quiet.

“There was… One of them had this thing he could do. A ritual, almost. At least, that’s what he called it,” he speaks but it feels like he’s never opened his mouth before that moment. No one else was in the woods. No one else was in his head. He exhales slow and the taste of smoke reminds him of looking down into the grave he’d made.

“It was like a lifeline. Between two people. He was on one side and Asuma… he was on the other side. Except this guy couldn’t die. So he… so they… ” There’s blood in his mouth and it’s a memory of black eyes growing dark.

“Did you kill him?”

He doesn’t know which one she means. He didn’t expect her to speak. Didn’t anticipate her moving closer and when her hand is warm on his shoulder, he flinches. _Did you kill him?_ ‘He died because of me.’ But that’s not the truth. Shikamaru knows. He knows, but it doesn’t make the guilt any less of a grave.

“Hidan, yeah. I buried him alive.”

That widens her eyes and for a moment her hand pulls from his shoulder. “Alive?”

“He can’t die. So I made it impossible for him to survive.”

‘This is your grave,’ he had said. It took all his convincing to make him remember it wasn’t his own. Finally he looks up to Temari’s face. To the concern in her blue eyes and something in him wants to be bitter. To be calm and collected but he’s _tired_. He’s so, so tired. When her hand comes back it’s to cup his cheek and he leans into the touch.

He doesn’t realize the first tear falls. He notices the second because she catches it on her thumb. The third and fourth have no meaning because they merge with the fifth and sixth and then Shikamaru is crying for the third time in his life.

“I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t strong enough. Asuma is _dead_ because I couldn’t do my job. I was outsmarted. Overpowered. He’s _dead_ , Temari.” Every time he says it, he knows it’s just to drive home the truth in his heart. It’s pointless to keep talking but her hand is warm on his cheek and he’s just remembering the dark. The cold and scattered shogi pieces and the echoing of his sobs without a hand on his face. He’s remembering the words that were locked behind his ribs when his face was pressed to the floor and he can’t keep them in any longer.

“I couldn’t save him.”

“But you got your revenge, right?”

“It isn’t the same.”

“Isn’t it?"

In the forest, Asuma’s hand on his shoulder couldn’t have been real. But in that moment he could’ve --- he swore --- _I give you my will of fire_ . Is that why he’s felt like he’s been burning ever since? There’s no cigarette and no light but Temari’s gotten closer and her arm is around him now. (She shouldn’t have to comfort him but she _is_ and he’ll have to remember to say thank you later) Now his hands are bloody in his memory, shaking when they wrap around her.

“I don’t know how you feel,” she speaks again and her hand leaves his cheek to settle on the back of his neck. Pulls him into her shoulder. “When Gaara died it wasn’t --- he wasn’t gone long. I didn’t have long to grieve. I can’t imagine... “

“I don’t want you to imagine.” It’s easier to speak now. The tears sink into the fabric of her clothes but he can’t find the will to pull from her. “You don’t need to. I’ll be fine. I don’t need you to---”

“Shut up.”

He’s expecting the words to come out like harsh wind. Like a desert storm but _shut up_ may be the quietest thing he’s ever heard Temari say. Her hand on his back rubs in a slow circle. When he looks up at her, she’s looking out across his backyard.

“You should quit smoking.” Again she speaks. Again he’s remembering wires in trees and the smoke in his lungs keeping him steady when he looks down into the grave. If he blinks, it turns into Asuma’s grave.

“Yeah. Yeah I will.” If he blinks, he only sees the woods.

**Author's Note:**

> idk how to end things and i think that shows oops


End file.
